Unfavorable Semicircle is the name of a 2015 YouTube channel that garnered attention due to the high volume and unusual nature of the published videos, usually featuring distorted audio and graphics. The BBC has referred to Unfavorable Semicircle as "YouTube's strangest mystery".[1] Unfavorable Semicircle has also been referred to as "one of the Top 10 Weirdest YouTube Channels".[2] The channel was suspended in February 2016 shortly after BBC's report.

Origins

In March 2015, a YouTube account with the title Unfavorable Semicircle was created; the channel began uploading large numbers of videos on April 5.[3] The channel continued to post large numbers of videos all titled with the Sagittarius symbol or a random six digit number, or both, but most lacking a description. The videos often display abstract, pixelated images. In some cases, they show just a single dot in a field of solid brown. Some videos omit sound while some feature distorted sounds.[3] Some videos are only seconds in length, while others are much longer ⁠— ⁠one completely silent video was 11 hours in length.[3]

Attention and disappearance

Due to the volume of uploads and the odd nature of the videos, observers started to take notice. Eventually, a small community on Reddit formed to investigate the channel.[4] According to computer security specialist Alan Woodward at University of Surrey, it is probably "too complex" to be a numbers station, and is also unlikely to be a recruitment puzzle as those are usually announced in some way.[1] The Unfavorable Semicircle channel was suspended by YouTube in February 2016, shortly after gaining publicity as a result of BBC reporting about it.[4]

Observations and Mystery

Since the channel's creation, there have been hundreds of attempts to solve what is Unfavorable Semicircle. Around March 2017, several observers found a Google Plus page named "Unfavorable Semicircl" linked to the channel. This Google Plus page then led to a Twitter user named "Unfavorable Semicirc" which then led to a backup channel named "Unfavorable Semi cir" which held the original videos and continued to upload new videos, for about 3 weeks until a final video was uploaded, titled "RESET STRANGE YD" which was up for 30 minutes until the deletion and overall termination of all accounts related to Unfavorable Semicircle.

Upon looking further into the videos themselves, people found even stranger artifacts. Observers quickly found out that if they overlap the video frames, they would make dark, grainy images relating to space satellites, astrology, and even an image of the Wikipedia page about art. The video audio would also be unnerving, featuring a man saying random letters and numbers, and there would be sharp, shrill sounds with static and randomly generated noise. The videos also seemed to be testing the limits of memory and compression, as it would crash Android phones and Nintendo Switches, and it would also lag on other devices. The cause of this is yet to be discovered, but it's very likely related to memory issues and compression artifacts.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Baraniuk, Chris (25 February 2016). "The Quest to Solve Youtube's Strangest Mystery". bbc.com.
  2. ↑ Dawson, Steve (15 April 2017). "Top 10 Weirdest YouTube Channels – The Strangest Videos". gazettereview.com. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 STARR, MICHELLE (24 February 2016). "This freaky YouTube channel invites conspiracy theories". cnet.com. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
  4. 1 2 SHILLING, ERIK (22 February 2016). "The Unsettling Mystery of the Creepiest Channel on YouTube". atlasobscura.com. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
  • Unfavorable Semicircle Wiki, a website documenting the subject.
  • , a subreddit figuring out the mysteries of Unfavorable Semicircle.
  • , the subject makes up a large chunk of this article.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.